Car subscription provider Mycardirect has marked its three-year anniversary by announcing major growth targets.
CEO Duncan Chumley said that the company, which currently has just over 2,000 members, is hoping to grow this to over 6,000 in three years’ time.
It has also been announced that Chumley has become CEO of AAM Group, which as well as Mycardirect also includes BestCarFinder and Onwrd, and has a combined fleet of over 5,000 vehicles.
Chumley said that Mycardirect was seeing growth from both B2B and B2C markets, helped by an improved new car supply situation compared with the height of the semiconductor crisis, despite wider economic uncertainty over the past 12 months.
Speaking at a media event to mark the anniversary, he said: “We continue to grow. On the positive side we’re seeing customers use the service for three months, who might go away for two months then come back.
“Other customers just love that they can change their cars when they want. Others are trying out electric for the first time and seeing which electric models suit them.
“From a business [customer] perspective, that ability that they can swap cars if they want to or hand their car back really helps.
“If a customer wants to move from subscription to leasing we can do that as well.”
Chumley said that 25% of the Mycardirect fleet was currently made up of EVs, and that the company was aiming to be guided by its customers in terms of fleet fuel mix.
He said: “We’re trying to provide the cars that customers ask us for really, and we build our fleet around customer demand.
“I think we’re seeing slightly higher [demand] than the market at the moment for EVs. We are also seeing a demand more recently for plug-in hybrids, and self-charging hybrids are becoming quite popular.”
Chumley said much of the demand for EVs had come from business customers, which he attributed to favourable tax rates.
He continued: “We’ve seen quite a lot of increase as well for EV demand in the larger cities. I would say dominated by London, as you might expect with ULEZ and congestion charging, but we are seeing a number of other cities introducing clean air zones as well, so we expect as that comes more to fruition, [we will see] more and more demand for EVs.”
Discussing the overall size of the car subscription market, Chumley said: “We’re growing month-in month-out, getting more enquiries from new customers, but compared to the overall contract hire/PCP market it’s tiny.
“I would suggest it’s probably running at about 15,000 vehicles. I see no reason why it can’t be 100,000-plus in four to five years.
“I think there are two components. One is EVs, two is customers just seeing the flexibility, but most important is just making customers aware it exists so they can make the choice.”
